134 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



Astronomy "the perfect science, as we astronomers like to call 

 it." (Jacoby.) 



It's my own notion that if, in a real existence, an astronomer 

 could not tell one longitude from another, he'd be sent back to this 

 purgatory of ours until he could meet that simple requirement. 



Halley was sent to the Cape of Good Hope to determine its 

 longitude. He got it degrees wrong. He gave to Africa's noble 

 Roman promontory a retrousse twist that would take the pride out 

 of any Kaffir. 



We hear everlastingly of Halley's comet. It came back maybe. 

 But, unless we look the matter up in contemporaneous records, we 

 hear nothing of the Leonids, for instance. By the same methods 

 as those by which Halley's comet was predicted, the Leonids were 

 predicted. Nov., 1898 no Leonids. It was explained. They had 

 been perturbed. They would appear in November, 1899. Nov., 

 1899 Nov., 1900 no Leonids. 



My notion of astronomic accuracy: 



Who could not be a prize marksman, if only his hits be re- 

 corded? 



As to Halley's comet, of 1910 everybody now swears he saw 

 it. He has to perjure himself: otherwise he'd be accused of having 

 no interest in great, inspiring things that he's never given any at- 

 tention to. 



Regard this: 



That there never is a moment when there is not some comet in 

 the sky. Virtually there is no year in which several new comets 

 are not discovered, so plentiful are they. Luminous fleas on a vast 

 black dog in popular impressions, there is no realization of the ex- 

 tent to which this solar system is flea-bitten. 



If a comet have not the orbit that astronomers have predicted 

 perturbed. If like Halley's comet it be late even a year late 

 perturbed. When a train is an hour late, we have small opinion 

 of the predictions of time tables. When a comet's a year late, all 

 we ask is that it be explained. We hear of the inflation and ar- 

 rogance of astronomers. My own acceptance is not that they are 

 imposing upon us: that they are requiting us. For many of us 

 priests no longer function to give us seeming rapport with Perfec- 

 tion, Infallibility the Positive Absolute. Astronomers have 

 stepped forward to fill a vacancy with quasi-phantomosity but, 

 in our acceptance, with a higher approximation to substantiality 

 than had the attenuations that preceded them. I should say, my- 



